Traffic on the Internet has quickly grown and continues to expand at unprecedented rates. Network switches play a critical role in sustaining that growth. Data to be passed by switches is generally divided into a series of packets that can be transmitted between devices. Packets include control information and payload data. The control information includes information used to deliver the payload data. For example, control information can include source and destination network addresses, error detection codes, packet sequencing identification, and the like. Typically, control information is found in packet headers and trailers included within the packet and adjacent to the payload data.
Generally, network switches have two primary planes: a control plane and a data plane. The control plane is a management plane that configures the data plane. The data plane receives packets on input ports and transmits the received packets to output ports based on the configuration. Communication between the control plane and data plane can be accomplished through a communications bus (e.g., PCIe).
The control plane can be rebooted for a number of reasons. For example, power loss may occur, or a processor can crash can occur, or the control plane can be intentionally rebooted, such as when a software update occurs. Any of these events can cause the entire switch to be offline for an extended period as the control plane operating system needs to go through a boot operation before the switch can become operational again.
Faster techniques are needed to allow the network switch to become operational after a reboot of the network switch.